Prolly Clojure. He’s heavily on Clojure these days.

But what’s an ᗋR𝖢ꔠ?

Isn’t it kinda funny that the “most harmful applications of AI tools are not hidden on the dark corners of the internet,” yet this article is locked behind a paywall?

And also https://lemmy.ml/c/fuck_cars

Haven’t touched Factorio in ages. Really looking forward to diving back in with the Space Age expansion!

Games really have to strike a chord with me to stick around in my memory. The last ones that truly left an impression were from when I first got into gaming. I can still vividly remember the impact of Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, GTA 3, and Vice City and San Andreas—they consumed my thoughts entirely. The allure of uncovering hidden secrets, areas left unexplored, that’s what really drew me in. Half-life 2 was a mind-blowing breakthrough with its physics and storytelling. But nowadays, that spark just seems to be missing. The closest I’ve come recently was with Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm. The thrill of snatching a victory against the odds, the sense of connection with total strangers—it was something special. It’s the only game that still gets my heart racing these days. However, I’ve found myself drifting away from HotS more and more; it feels like the game is losing its luster (or maybe it’s Blizzard who’s letting it fade… or perhaps MOBAs in general are falling out of favor). As for recent gems that really struck a chord with me, I’d have to mention Hollow Knight, Control (seriously underrated in my opinion—easily one of the best metroidvanias out there, if not the best), and Baldur’s Gate 3, which was unexpectedly captivating.

I spent about 30 seconds staring at this question, followed by 3 minutes pondering how to explain the phenomenon of electricity to someone unfamiliar with it, but nothing came to mind. Then, I went online and found that, while we have some understanding of how to detect and manipulate electricity, fundamentally, it’s just how our universe works and we don’t know exactly what it is.

2% for the reliable independent monetary system seems like a good deal. How much does our current one consume with all its flaws?

For Karl!

But why though? I’m serious. People willingly want to be customers of this. They know that *polies are going to have leverage on them and still buy their product. Why should we say, ‘No, we’re not going to let you do that’? Or maybe you think that people are just not informed enough and don’t understand the consequences of their actions? Then maybe we should educate them instead of trying to control?

But that’s the thing - they aren’t. Not once they’re bought. At that point, they’re my device, or your device.

Well, you may want it to be completely yours, but in fact, there are many things that you can’t and sometimes don’t want to control on your phone. But Apple never claimed that you can control everything. Apple never advertised their phones as having many application stores; quite the opposite, actually. You don’t expect a satellite connection from a phone that doesn’t have it; you don’t expect a phone without water resistance to work underwater. I understand if some product does not meet your expectations, you’re frustrated, but in this case, you received exactly what you asked for. Want something else? Buy from another company. Why force this company to do things your way?

Surely you can see how having a single supplier can be a bad thing, right? That supplier has no incentive to deliver quality. Why would they?

Of course, I can see that having a single supplier can and will cause many issues. The problem for me is that I don’t believe in monopolies. Monopolies are very unstable. Firstly, for a monopoly to form, a few things with low probability should happen: in your analogy, there should be no other cookie provider (neither now nor in the foreseeable future), and customers should be willing to buy cookies that I produce at any cost. In reality, there’s always someone else who’s willing to (or at least can) produce more cookies, and customers are not complete idiots. If I increase the price or lower the quality beyond their limit, very quickly I will be left with full warehouses and a bad reputation and go bankrupt. Secondly, you always have a choice. Present me with a situation, and I will tell you which choices you have (they all may be bad, but whatever they are, they are options). In the case of Apple, there are obviously plenty of choices. They’re not the only company producing smartphones. And even on their phones, there’s Cydia. So, what monopoly does Apple have? Well, they’re the only corporation that can produce iPhones. Should we allow other companies to produce iPhones in this case?

I’m an anti-Apple advocate and an Android user. And I’m against this law. What good does it bring? These are Apple’s devices; let them do whatever they want with them. Don’t like how Apple does business? Buy another brand. Advocate against Apple. Suggest alternatives. But do not force them to do things how you like. It’s just toxic. I believe that the most anti-consumer thing is when governments try to decide what customers want or need. I hate it when they take me for an idiot (I might often be, but let me make my mistakes and learn from them).

https://vanillaos.org/

The take here, I believe, is that if politicians were to receive higher salaries, greater expectations would naturally follow. Currently, the sentiment seems to be: “They earn 150 grand a year; can we really expect them to be intelligent? Of course not. No intelligent person would work for that salary.” The preferable scenario would be: “If we pay them 1 million a month and they still lack intelligence, we should replace them with more capable individuals!”

For the same reason, I believe that all taxes should be transparent, allowing people to see exactly how much they are contributing. In Russia, where I reside, taxes are concealed, and individuals are unaware that they are paying 40-50% of their income to the state. Taxes have consistently been advertised as “just 13%”, leading people to believe they have the lowest taxes globally. In reality, they are paying European-level taxes.

In conclusion, higher salaries lead to increased competition, attracting more intelligent and competent individuals to these roles. Similarly, transparency in government and financial matters leads to greater public expectations and demands from the government.

Wow. Yeah, it doesn’t work anymore. I tried a similar thing (printing numbers forever) about 6 months ago, and it declined my request. However, after I asked it to print some ordinary big number like 10,000, it did print it out for about half an hour (then I just gave up and stopped it). Now, it doesn’t even do that. It just goes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… and then skips, and then 9998, 9999, 10000. It says something about printing all the numbers may not be practical. Meh.

Great guide!

The site that comes to mind is Ian’s Shoelace Website. The ultimate guide about shoelaces. The most impactful/important thing for me was Ian’s Knot, the fastest and most correct way to tie a shoe. I discovered this website in the mid-2000s and have been using his method since. Anyway, it’s a fun and comprehensive website about shoelaces. https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm

Although I am also very much against government control over things and believe that for every one good control law from the government, we get 5 things that infringe upon our rights, I believe this particular legislation is a good one. I don’t think that phone manufacturers maliciously make irreplaceable batteries (although they do many other malicious things, so who knows), but there was a race for thinness back in the mid-2000s when irreplaceable batteries were “invented”; now it’s just inertia. In any case, I can see a demand for fully repairable items and believe that the market is moving in that direction; governments are just pushing it a little.

That go crab is awesome! 🥲